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Language Is a Human Right

An interview with veteran activist Debbie Wei on language education in the Asian American community

By Grace Cornell Gonzales

Debbie Wei

In addition to her many years teaching English language learners and as a curriculum specialist, Debbie Wei is a founding member of Asian Americans United and the founding principal of Folk Arts-Cultural Treasures Charter School in Philadelphia. She is currently elementary school director at Crossroads School for Arts & Sciences in Santa Monica, California.

Grace Cornell Gonzales: Let’s start by talking about your background as an educator.

Debbie Wei: I never envisioned myself as a teacher because I didn’t have great school experiences. I fell into teaching by accident. I wanted to be a community organizer. In Philadelphia’s Chinatown in the late 1970s, a lot of people were immigrants from Hong Kong and they spoke Cantonese. So I got a college fellowship to go live in Hong Kong for two years to learn Cantonese.

But this was right after the Vietnam War. When I returned to Philadelphia, there were many refugees from Vietnam, from Laos, from Cambodia. There were also some Haitians and Cubans. There was no longer a dominant language among immigrants in the communities where I was working and living, and I didn’t speak any of their languages. But I could communicate with the kids because they were going to school and acquiring English. I thought, “Well, if this is the group that I’m going to be working with to try to change conditions in the community, why don’t I become a teacher?”

I got certified through a program where you could work in a school and get your certification at the same time. I became an ESL (English as a second language) teacher and I fell in love with teaching. A few years later, the School District of Philadelphia published a pretty horrific diversity handbook. It included statements like “Puerto Ricans like to eat tacos.” There was already an African American studies department within the district, so the Latina/o and Asian communities organized to demand that the district hire a multicultural specialist for each of these two constituencies. Many community members asked me to apply for that position. I became a curriculum specialist in multicultural studies for the next 13 years.

I was still organizing for educational justice during that time and working with an organization called Asian Americans United. We talked about how to make schools immigrant-friendly, and we decided after many years that we needed to create a model school. Starting the charter process was not an easy decision because politically we were concerned about the role of charter schools in public education. However, after a multiyear decision-making process, we decided to go ahead and start Folk Arts-Cultural Treasures Charter School (FACTS). I was the founding principal. I held that position for five years and then I stepped aside, knowing that I’d still be around if they needed me.

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